Birthplace Family and Friends

Lincoln’s rise from a
log cabin in Kentucky to the highest office in the nation symbolizes the American
spirit of freedom and equality. From Lincoln’s
birth onward, Kentucky and Kentuckians played essential roles in his development
and ideals. According to Lincoln scholar
Harold Holzer, “The idea that someone could rise from that tiny cabin in
Kentucky to the presidency of the United States is not just the American dream,
it is the universal dream.”

The Lincoln family entered
Kentucky as part of the westward migration movement of the late eighteenth
century. Lincoln’s grandfather and
namesake, Abraham Lincoln, purchased a four-hundred-acre tract in eastern
Jefferson County and migrated to Kentucky from Virginia in 1782. In May 1786, the elder Lincoln was planting a
crop of corn with his sons, Josiah, Mordecai, and Thomas, when they were
attacked by a small band of Indians. Abraham was killed in the attack, and the
Lincoln family moved to a part of current-day Washington County. In an 1854 letter, Lincoln wrote that “the
story of his [grandfather’s] death by the Indians, and of Uncle Mordecai, then
fourteen years old, killing one of the Indians, is the legend more strongly
than all others imprinted upon my mind and memory.”

Lincoln’s father, Thomas, was
raised in Washington County where he married Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks, in
1806. The couple first settled in
Elizabethtown and then moved to the Sinking Spring farm near Hodgenville where
Lincoln was born in 1809. Due to a land
dispute, the Lincoln’s were forced to abandon the Sinking Spring farm and moved
ten miles away to Knob Creek, where they lived for the next six years. Knob Creek was the site of Lincoln’s first
memories, but the family was again forced to leave in 1816 “partly on account
of slavery,” as Lincoln later put it, “but chiefly on account of the difficulty
in land titles in Kentucky.”

Although the
Lincoln family continued to migrate west, settling just across the Ohio River
in Indiana, Lincoln’s ties with his native state were a constant influence on
his life. Lincoln’s lifelong best
friend, Joshua Speed, was from Farmington in Louisville, where Lincoln had an
extended visit in 1841. Lincoln and
Speed were extraordinarily close, and Speed later recounted that Lincoln
“disclosed his whole heart to me.”
Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd, was born and raised in Lexington, and her
affluent upbringing represented an important cultural contrast with her husband’s
that impacted the couple throughout their marriage. Lincoln developed close relationships with
other Todd family members, such as Emily Todd Helm and her husband Benjamin
Hardin Helm.

Perhaps most
importantly, Lincoln’s political idol was the renowned Kentucky politician,
Henry Clay, whose political pre-eminence and staunch Unionism did much to
influence the sixteenth president’s beliefs and ideals. The intellectual voice of the Whig Party,
Clay crafted the party platform of national unity that resulted in the
Compromises of 1820 and 1850. He also articulated a model for economic
development that added a bold new facet to the nation’s traditional reliance on
agriculture and overseas trade. Clay’s “American System” focused on industrial
development, federal funding of internal transportation improvements, a high
tariff to protect the nation’s industrial development, and a strong national
bank to provide a source of investment capital. To a great extent, Clay’s
vision was the model for the nation’s economic future. As his political career developed, Lincoln
always considered himself a Clay man. It is no coincidence that most of his
personal and political Kentucky connections, including his in-laws, were
Southern Whigs. As the Whig Party disintegrated in the chaotic decade of the
1850s following the 1850 Compromise, Abraham Lincoln and other northern Whigs
migrated to the Republican Party, bringing forward Henry Clay’s dedication to
preserving the union. They profoundly influenced the new party’s stance on
national unity, economics, and the slavery question that ultimately tore the
nation apart.

Slavery, Emancipation, and Self-Liberation

Lincoln’s
close ties to his native state brought him continually into contact with
slavery, and his relationships with Kentuckians were pivotal to his evolving
views on the institution. Lincoln’s
boyhood experiences in Kentucky placed him firmly on the trajectory of opposing
slavery, and Kentuckians such as Henry Clay did much to influence his beliefs
and policies on “the peculiar institution.”

Lincoln’s
boyhood was framed by his early exposure to the institution of slavery. It was at the Knob Creek farm that he saw
slaves in chains for the first time as they were transported along the
Louisville-Nashville Pike for sale farther South. His family’s membership in an anti-slavery
Baptist congregation exposed him to the intense debate over slavery and an
organized response to the moral and ethical quandaries related to human
bondage. Abraham’s father, Thomas
Lincoln, took his family out of Kentucky in 1816 and Lincoln later recalled
that his father’s decision to leave for the free state of Indiana “was based
partly on account of slavery.”

Lincoln’s
in-laws, the Todds, were slave owners, and while visiting Lexington in 1847 and
1848, he learned firsthand about the institution. Because of these visits to Kentucky, his
ideas that slavery should not be permitted to spread were strengthened. Lincoln’s distaste of slavery was also
bolstered during his trip to Farmington in 1841. In addition to his close observation of
dozens of slaves at Farmington, Lincoln saw a group of slaves forced onto a
boat upon his departure. The memory of
these slaves separated from their families remained embedded in his mind. Years later, Lincoln recalled the incident
vividly, and stated in an 1855 letter to his friend Joshua Speed that the “sight
was a continual torment to me … [having] the power of making me
miserable.”

Perhaps
no other person influenced Lincoln’s political beliefs more than Henry Clay, and
this is especially true regarding slavery. As Lincoln stated in his eulogy of Clay in
1854, Clay
was “ever was on principle and in feeling, opposed to slavery” and “did not
perceive, that on a question of human right, the negroes were to be excepted
from the human race.” Lincoln’s belief
in gradual emancipation, which he carried until his presidency, further mirrored
Clay’s position. Clay’s “very earliest, and
one of the latest public efforts of his life,” Lincoln stated in his eulogy, “separated
by a period of more than fifty years, were both made in favor of gradual
emancipation of the slaves in Kentucky.”
Lincoln was also influenced by the fiery Cassius Clay, whose
anti-slavery views gained him national notoriety. Cassius Clay helped form the Republican Party
and campaigned actively for Abraham Lincoln.
He was later appointed minister to Russia.

As
president, Lincoln initially hoped that Kentuckians would accept compensated
emancipation, a process whereby they would be paid to free their slaves. Kentuckians rejected this offer. Lincoln, however, warned the state that
unless they accepted compensated emancipation, it was likely that the Civil War
would end slavery, leaving slaveholding Kentuckians to suffer vast economic
losses. This proved prophetic.

As
the war progressed and white Union military enlistment slowed, Federal
authorities turned to another available source of manpower—African
Americans. Recruitment in Kentucky began
in earnest in February 1864 at Camp Nelson and Louisville. Loyal slave owners were to receive $300 for
each slave who volunteered to the army, and fugitive slaves were pressed into
the service. Eventually, more than
23,700 African-American Kentuckians joined the Union army, second only to
Louisiana in numbers.

A
House Divided: Lincoln, Kentucky, and the Civil War

Lincoln
understood the importance of the border state of Kentucky. With rivers, railroads, horses, and manpower,
Kentucky’s natural and material resources were vital to the Union cause. Early in the conflict, Lincoln told a U.S.
senator, “I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole
game. Kentucky gone, we cannot hold
Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland.
These all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to separation at
once, including the surrender of this capitol.”
He knew the centered role that the Bluegrass State would play during the
Civil War. As historian Kenneth W. Noe
has written, “Victory likely would go to the belligerent that occupied the Border
States, and securing that vital region meant holding Kentucky at all costs.”

Despite
their entrenched commitment to slavery, the people of Kentucky voiced their
dedication to preserving the Union with a plurality of voters supporting the
Constitutional Union Party in the fateful presidential election of 1860. Although the Kentucky electorate returned a
near-unanimous repudiation of Lincoln’s Republican ticket, the state’s strong
Unionist tradition ultimately cast it on Lincoln’s side. Just like Lincoln’s hero, Henry Clay, the
people of Kentucky hoped to hammer out one more compromise over slavery. The
state’s last-ditch attempt to remain neutral in 1861 dramatically illustrates
its divided loyalties and the quixotic hope of avoiding the impending war.

Most
of Lincoln’s in-laws supported the Confederacy.
When the conflict erupted, Lincoln offered the post of paymaster to his
brother-in-law, Benjamin Hardin Helm.
Helm, who turned down this post.
Instead, he joined the Confederate army and eventually led the famed
“Orphan Brigade,” which was Kentucky’s most famous infantry unit. Brigadier General Helm was killed on
September 20, 1863, at the Battle of Chickamauga. Lincoln reportedly wept when he heard the
news.

After
Helm’s death, his widow, Emilie Todd Helm, visited Abraham and Mary Lincoln in
the White House. This created a stir in
Washington, and newspapers complained when Lincoln’s rebel sister-in-law
visited. Union General Daniel Sickles
told Lincoln, “You should not have that rebel in your house.” The president retorted, “General Sickles, my
wife and I are in the habit of choosing our own guests. We do not need from our friends either advice
or assistance in the matter.” These
divisions created bitterness in the family.
Later, when Emilie was seeking the president’s permission to travel into
the Confederacy to sell cotton, she told Lincoln that she had been “a quiet
citizen and request only the right which humanity and Justice always give to
Widows and orphans. I also would remind
you that your Minnie bullets have made us what we are & I feel I have that
additional claim upon you.”

Lincoln
was keenly sensitive to his precarious political position in Kentucky. His
dismal showing in the state’s presidential election, the Confederate
allegiances of tens of thousands of Kentuckians, and the actions of his wife’s
family reminded him that the Union’s hold on the state was fragile. Members of
his “rebel kin” served in the Confederate Army and hundreds of other Kentucky
families broke apart over the war. Southern sympathizers created a provincial
state government and the Confederacy dedicated substantial forces and other
resources in its efforts to pull Kentucky into its sphere, including a major
invasion in 1862. The Confederates wanted the state for many of the same
reasons that the Union was determined to hold it – troops, supplies, and its
strategic location on the Ohio River.

Despite
these difficulties, the president never lost sight of Kentucky’s vital
importance. He employed all his political skill and deployed large numbers of
Union troops that were in demand in other theaters to keep the state in the
Union. As he remarked in the early stage of the war, “I think to lose Kentucky
is nearly the same as to lose the whole game.”

Lincoln’s deep
personal friendships and family ties in Kentucky provided him with keen
insights into the dual nature of this vital border state. Given his commitment to preserving the Union
and unwillingness to precipitate a constitutional crisis by attacking slavery
where it existed, the future president perhaps said more than even he knew when
he stated in 1861, “I, too, am a Kentuckian.”

After Lincoln’s
assassination in 1865, the trial of his co-conspirator assassins was handled by
his cabinet member, Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt. Previously a member of the Buchanan
admiration, Holt was a staunch Unionist who helped keep Kentucky from joining
the South. As Judge Advocate General,
Holt was indefatigable in rooting out Confederate sympathizers in the
North. After Lincoln’s death, Holt was
charged with prosecuting the remaining co-conspirators, whose role in attacking
Lincoln and members of his cabinet resulted in their executions in 1865.

Lincoln
in Public Memory and Living Culture

Lincoln’s unique
relationship with Kentucky extends well beyond the Civil War era, stretching
through the twentieth century and lasting until today. As is well documented, Kentucky’s wartime
devotion to American unity gave way to eventual idealization of Confederate
memory, as evidenced by many public monuments devoted to Confederate heroes in
Kentucky. According to Dr. Anne
Marshall, author of the book Creating a
Confederate Kentucky, the state “developed a Confederate identity that was
seemingly at odds with its historical past.”
Dozens of monuments devoted to Confederate veterans were erected in the
decades after the Civil War, such as Lexington’s statues of John C.
Breckinridge and John Hunt erected in Cheapside- a former slave auction site-
and Louisville’s 70-foot-tall monument to Confederate veterans.

Despite this
post-war embrace of Confederate memory, Lincoln’s legacy in his native state
has seen increasing recognition and influence.
By the turn of the 20th Century, reconciliation movements in Kentucky had
begun to bring white Union and Confederate veterans together, and efforts to
memorialize the state’s Union heritage took root. In 1906, a group known as the Lincoln Farm
Association- led by notable Americans such as Mark Twain, William Jennings
Bryan, and Henry Watterson- successfully purchased the Sinking Spring Farm
where Lincoln was born. A few years
later, to house what was believed to be Lincoln’s birthplace cabin, the Lincoln
Birthplace Memorial was erected. The cornerstone of the memorial was dedicated
in 1909 by President Theodore Roosevelt, and President William Howard Taft
dedicated the finished building in 1912.

Also in 1912, a
statue of Lincoln was placed prominently in the center of Kentucky’s Capitol
Rotunda, a further illustration of the state’s embrace of its native son’s
legacy and ideals. Interestingly, this
monument to Lincoln is flanked by statues of Henry Clay and Jefferson Davis,
Lincoln’s pre-war mentor and Civil War adversary, respectively. This featuring of Lincoln at the center of
Kentucky’s Capitol Rotunda symbolizes the ways in which beliefs and ideals in Kentucky
have been shaped by this native son.

The early 20th
century also witnessed the building of the Lincoln Institute, a school for
African Americans built in response to a discriminatory law passed by the
state’s General Assembly in 1904. This
1904 “Day Law,” which outlawed the practice of teaching black and white students
in the same institution, was aimed at Berea College, which had been conducting
interracial classes since the Civil War.
Berea College challenged the Day Law all the way to the United States
Supreme Court, which upheld the discriminatory act, bolstering the legal
foundations of segregation in America.
Notably, the court’s dissenting argument was penned by Kentuckian and
former slave owner John Marshall Harlan, who noted in his dissent that “our
Constitution is colorblind.” The Lincoln Institute operated as an African
American school until 1966 and now serves as a federal Job Corps site.

The memorialization
of Lincoln in Kentucky accelerated during the Lincoln Bicentennial from 2008-2010,
a celebration of the 200th anniversary of his birth. Led by a significant state investment,
numerous cultural and educational projects were undertaken, such as the
re-establishment of the Kentucky Lincoln Heritage Trail, public art projects,
preservation initiatives, and educational endeavors. New statues of Lincoln were erected in
Louisville, Hodgenville, and Springfield, and the home of Joseph Holt- Lincoln’s
Judge Advocate General- was purchased for preservation. New permanent interpretive exhibits were also
created at the Lincoln Museum, Farmington, the Hardin County History Museum,
and the Washington County Courthouse.

The legacy of
Lincoln’s life and times is alive today in customs and folklife traditions
within the study area. The annual
Lincoln Days festival in Hodgenville has occurred since 1975 and features a
Lincoln-related art competition, Lincoln presenters contest, and rail splitting
demonstrations. The Kentucky Bourbon* Festival in
Nelson County features historical demonstrations of the whiskey making process,
including the craft of coopering, which is the art of making wooden whiskey
barrels. The Kentucky Humanities Council
sponsors Chautauqua characters including Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln,
and Henry Clay, who visit schools and events throughout the state. Numerous other Lincoln heritage sites in
Kentucky feature similar traditions such as Camp Nelson’s Civil War Days, Ashland:
The Henry Clay Estate’s Living History Day, The Joseph Holt Home’s Community
Day, and the Mary Todd Lincoln House’s President’s Day event. The 12th Colored Heavy Artillery
is a reenacting group based at Camp Nelson.

Most recently,
the sites that comprise the Kentucky Lincoln Heritage Trail have solidified
their partnership by creating the Kentucky Lincoln Heritage Trail Alliance- a
501-c-3 nonprofit organization- whose mission is to preserve and promote
Kentucky’s Lincoln heritage by establishing and maintaining vibrant
self-sustaining partnerships between Lincoln heritage sites in Kentucky.

* Whiskey was an
important part of the culture of Lincoln’s birthplace and boyhood in
Kentucky. Lincoln’s father, Thomas,
engaged in the craft of coopering wood barrels for transporting whiskey, and he
reputedly accepted barrels of whiskey as payment for property when leaving
Kentucky.